Ramblings

Hey everyone -- check out my new website: www.plantladyland.com
I'm enjoying the landscape design history class I'm taking right now -- it's all about how different cultures have interpreted their gardens ... it's amazing the extraordinary lengths middle eastern cultures would go to to create garden oases in the desert and how the garden of eden and the idea of paradise as a garden developed out of this barren landscape ...

And then there's the perplexing and intriguing world of asian landscape design -- where gardens were created to entice and confuse the senses -- nothing is out in the open .. all the paths are winding and multi-tiered through grottos, by ponds, and up hills and into moon viewing pagodas -- where false endings seemed to signify a closure but really, should you look more closely, actually might lead to a whole new pathway.

It's refreshing to see the way gardens have not always been simple cookie-cutter, sanitized versions of the American grass lawn and meatball hedges ... where differences were celebrated more and character was often prized over attempts at aesthetic perfection.